Michael Oryl(497 posts)

BenQ to offer Android smartphone and netbook in 2010

Taiwanese electronics manufacturer BenQ announced earlier today that it plans to put out an Android powered smartphone and possibly an Android powered netbook next year. The announcement was reported by IDG News’ Dan Nysted:

The company hopes to market an Android-based smartphone next year, a BenQ representative said, as it attempts to rebuild its name in mobile phones. A netbook based on Android is also in the works, but its makeup hasn’t yet been decided.

BenQ made a splash in the smartphone arena when it took over German manufacturer Siemens’ ailing cell phone division. The company sold phones under the BenQ-Siemens brand for some time, but pulled [...]

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General Mobile DSTL1’s Dual-SIM feature in screen shots

Earlier today General Mobile sent us a bunch of screen shots from its DSTL1 Android powered smartphone. While the pictures don’t show any 3rd party applications running, you can see how the Android OS itself looks on the WQVGA (240×400 pixel) display that the device uses, as opposed to the half-VGA (480×320 pixel) displays used on the G1 and Magic.

From what I can tell, so far, so good.

In most all of the screen shots in the gallery, found after the jump, you can see dual signal strength meters as well as other dual-SIM functionality, such as defining separate ringtones for each [...]

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T-Mobile USA to release details on its next Android phone this month

T-Mobile USA said that its next Android based phone would be available in “early summer”, it seems that the company is going to spill the beans sometime before then. According to a mocoNews interview of T-Mobile USA’s Cole Brodman, the company’s chief technical officer, T-Mobile will unveil its next Android phone this month (June, 2009).

In the interview Brodman wouldn’t give many details, but mocoNews seems to think that it is likely that the device will be from a new manufacturer partnet based on what Brodman said. The following passage is from the mocoNews story:

He wouldn’t say much else about the device, but it sounds like it has a [...]

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HTC press event on June 24 – Hero on the way?

HTC has sent out invitations for a June 24 press event in London. While we sort out exactly who from the MobileBurn/AndroidAuthority clan is going, everybody is speculating over what device or devices will be launched.

Of course a lot of people are pulling for a new Android smartphone, and the HTC Hero would seem to be the likely suspect if that is indeed the case. But, to be honest, we really have no idea since we still would have been invited even if it turns out to be for a Windows Mobile phone. Perhaps we’ll be able to form a better guess after looking around at the Android sites that are not associated with larger phone sites to see who got invited and who [...]

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Garmin-ASUS to offer Android smartphone by Q1, 2010

From the Computex show in Taiwan, IDG’s Dan Nystedt is reporting that Garmin-ASUS has said that it should have its first Android powered smartphone on the market by the end of Q1, 2010. It was also noted that an ASUS executive mentioned that the device could actually come out before Q1.

Garmin-ASUS is a co-development venture between GPS manufacturer Garmin and electronics manufacturer Asustek. The company has already launched several smartphones, including the G60, which runs a version of the Linux operating system that forms the core of Android.

T-Mobile USA: Next Android device coming in early summer 2009

We received a brief note from T-Mobile USA today highlighting the successes that it has had with the Android platform so far, and talking a wee bit about its next Android powered device.

For starters, T-Mo has said that it has sold over 1 million T-Mobile G1 (HTC Dream) smartphones in the U.S. since its launch last year. It also mentioned that there are currently over 4,900 applications available in the Android Market for the device.

The important bit of information, however, is that the next Android device is going to be offered in the early summer time frame this year. The note didn’t [...]

Acer joins Open Handset Alliance, says devices planned for Q4 2009

Today Acer issued a press release announcing that it has officially joined the Open Handset Alliance. The OHA is the organization founded by Google and others that supports the Linux based Android smartphone operating system.

Acer also said in the announcement that it expects to launch Android based devices in the fourth quarter of this year. The full press release is available after the jump.

Qualcomm shows ASUS Eee PC running Android

According to the IDG News Service, Qualcomm has begun showing off an ASUS Eee PC netbook that is running on a new Qualcomm Snapdragon CPU with the Android OS at the Computex show today in Taiwan.

Qualcomm is calling the device a “smartbook.” The device is larger than a smartphone, of course, yet smaller than a typical netbook since Qualcomm’s compact 1GHz Snapdragon CPU requires no fans or heat sinks to operate properly. This is the first ASUS netbook to use a non-Intel processor, and Qualcomm’s snapdragon CPU is based on the same ARM core architecture that most smartphone use today.